Understanding Your Target Audience
Who is this all for, anyway. That’s the first question that comes up, but it gets lost pretty quickly in the drive to get more people - more leads - on your books. I get it.
You want to cast your net wide and start conversations with as many people as possible. Who doesn’t want that. But it’s important not to forget that you’re not marketing to a vague blob of ‘people’ who fit into a neat little box called ‘Target Audience’.
If you’re trying to triple your leads, going after an amorphous group of faceless individuals, who may or may not have anything in common, isn’t going to cut it. Sure, it might get you numbers - but numbers without any sort of intent or value are just that: numbers. Your target audience has always been a bit more than a group of stats on some slide deck.
Somewhere along the way, marketers and creative professionals managed to lose sight of the fact that they’re selling things or services or ideas to real people. With how much data exists today, there is no excuse for such an oversight anymore. The best marketers know exactly who they’re selling to and what they want. They also know that people change their minds all the time and being able to keep track of those changes is vital for success in the long-term.
This means knowing when someone is ready to buy into your idea and when someone doesn’t care at all anymore. You cannot just create one experience for everyone and expect things to work out forever. If only things were so easy.
Crafting Compelling Lead Magnets
It's interesting to see how much 'lead magnets' have evolved. There was a time when the promise of a plain old PDF or checklist would make people hand over their email faster than you could say 'free stuff'. Now, you have to be a bit more creative, and for good reason - people's inboxes are bursting with clever ideas and 'value bombs'.
Let me talk about the psychology behind crafting lead magnets that do their job (and do it well). You can't just put out an eBook or resource because you've read it's a great way to get leads. It needs to feel like it's coming from your brand - your values, beliefs, experiences, worldviews. That means going a little beyond the usual.
I'm not telling you to give away all your trade secrets or be someone you're not. Sometimes it could just be as simple as showing someone how you've solved the problem they face in the form of a story or case study. When you look at lead magnets today - there's quite a lot of creativity involved in making something that truly sticks with your audience.
I've seen quizzes that help you decide on holiday destinations, little self-assessment checklists that quickly show if you're on the right track, interactive landing pages with infographics and calculators for specific situations. There's even little video series' and courses for those who really want to go the extra mile. While it's tempting to create something that's 'me too' - like your competition is doing - it feels empty sometimes because it doesn't feel like it's providing value.
That's my biggest takeaway with crafting compelling lead magnets: providing value - whatever that looks like for your target audience. It doesn't have to be complicated but it does need to connect back to what you're trying to say in terms of who you are sometimes as a business, but also who they are as people you'd enjoy working with. Those are the ones that stick anyway - even if they're less frequent than you'd expect them to be.
Optimizing Landing Pages for Conversion
For a lot of business owners, I think there’s a genuine confusion about landing pages and their purpose. It’s been thrown around as a buzzword so much that you’d be forgiven for not knowing what it does or how it does it. The thing is, at their core, landing pages are pages on your website that exist purely to serve one action - typically to capture a lead or convert a lead into a sale.
Now, optimising these landing pages for conversion can seem quite daunting but I find that the best results come from keeping things simple. There’s no need for fancy graphics or even heavy customisation if your content is compelling enough. If you’re taking the user on an adventure, then make sure the ride is more enjoyable than the destination.
When you’re looking at optimisation, think about loading speed, compelling copy, and relevant images. Most marketers will tell you to avoid any sort of distractions on this page but I find that while they’re absolutely right, sometimes less is more can make a website feel empty and almost suspicious. Transparency and authenticity in your copy are almost never so important here - far more important than some cookie-cutter content designed to make users fill out a form.
Incorporating some sort of social proof like testimonials can boost confidence and adding an FAQ section can help answer questions before users even have them. But what matters most when creating optimised landing pages is understanding who you’re building them for. Understanding the kind of people who are relatively visiting these pages makes all the difference because then you can create something tailor-made for them - something that feels like it was made just for them.
Utilizing Social Proof to Build Trust
It’s a funny thing, human behaviour. Looks Like it doesn’t matter how deeply we understand ourselves or our actions, sometimes when we’re faced with making a decision, we still need someone else to nudge us along. The same is true for leads - clients don’t want to be the first to do something, whether it’s spending money on something expensive or following you on social media - it’s just basic instincts. Social proof is a play on this instinct.
It leverages another’s authority or influence to help us make decisions quickly and with more confidence by removing the daunting feeling of being first - or going out on a limb. It’s possible there was some degree of shame attached too, especially when brands were still new, and being associated with them was ‘uncool’. But in today’s world, there is much less judgement about belonging anywhere - online or offline. And yet even now - your followers, clients, friends and family all play an important part in helping potential clients trust your brand.
I think what stands out now versus five years ago is that while influencer led social proof worked wonders back then, today it seems only slightly more effective than peer-led reviews and testimonials. Sort of. Some experts say this has everything to do with authenticity and relatability rather than just popularity.
Which means you don’t necessarily have to pay a bunch of influencers for their fake praise - but instead collect actual reviews from actual users who would love nothing more than for others to enjoy your offerings as much as they did. In any case, those little numerical values next to ‘followers’ or ‘reviews’ are counted every single time someone comes across your page or ad - so it doesn’t hurt to add those numbers up honestly and tell the world how many people love you.
Leveraging Email Marketing for Lead Nurturing
You know that email in the past had quite a bad rep, especially with all those cold-email spammers. Emails have now become a game changer, and not just in your private lives and careers, but also in business, and specifically lead nurturing.
As cheesy as it may sound, in the world of email marketing and lead nurturing, content is king, and it is wise to remember that. Sort of. What this means is that your emails are not just vehicles for your product or your brand. People do not like being sold to, so marketers understand that today's content needs to be story-driven.
They need to evoke emotion and need to be authentic in how they tell their stories. Consumers are hardly ever looking for insight into the brand they buy into, they want to hear real stories from other customers who have experienced it and they want brands who make them feel seen and heard.
This is why it is crucial for email marketing campaigns to contain not only information about your products or services but also should be relatable and easy to read (and scroll through). The last thing you want is for people to unsubscribe from your mailing list. It seems like a key component in a successful nurture campaign is providing value while also being relatable.
This includes addressing consumer pain points, using relatable language and showing empathy towards what your potential leads are feeling or going through so they feel acknowledged. If that value doesn't come across as authentic enough, it may be off-putting for users who are constantly bombarded with sales material every single day. If at all possible, a great way to show your leads you are thinking about them is offering exclusive discounts within these emails.
Including added incentives can help get you noticed as a company that truly values its customer base while still allowing you to focus on lead nurturing.
Analyzing and Adjusting Your Strategies for Success
It seems like it seems like everyone is looking for a quick fix. The way I see it, but the reality is that boosting your leads isn’t always about making radical changes or being excessively clever. Sometimes, it’s far more mundane.
It’s about the kind of careful, ongoing process that doesn’t get much airtime because - well - there’s nothing particularly sexy about it. But I find there’s something rather reassuring in that. Now, it may sound a bit counterintuitive but analysing and adjusting strategies for success takes less work than you’d think and considerably more consistency and patience than most people are willing to admit to having.
It seems like the sticking point with this approach is quite simply not giving up before the results start to show. And, yes, while numbers do tell a big part of the story, it’s not all about lead volume. More or less. There’s something to be said for focusing on nurturing relationships over fast growth through generic automation.
That might mean that what you’re doing looks slightly different from everyone else in your industry, but if it’s getting you solid results then it might just be worth doubling down on anyway. There are all sorts of lead capture techniques out there - some solid and others way out there - but nothing works unless you understand what resonates with your audience and don’t get sucked into the next shiny thing.
It seems like you might find yourself wondering if something is working only once you pause long enough to check how it feels when compared to an alternative technique. It sounds simple but rarely does anyone do this often enough.